The Effect Of Cognitive Training On Brain Connectivity In Normal Aging Subject

The aging process affects human’s cognitive function,and brings challenges to the aging individuals,their families,and the society in general.Cognitive training has turned out to be a promising approach to prevent or impede aging-related cognitive decline.In demographic and behavioral studies,people have gained in-depth understanding in the effect of cognitive training.In contrary,however,the neural basis of cognitive training has not been fully explored yet.The functional magnetic resonance imaging(fMRI)has a high spatial resolution and relatively good temporal resolution,and is a suitable imaging modality to study the neural mechanism of cognitive training.In our study,we examined the brain’s spontaneous activity in healthy older adults with resting-state fMRI.We investigated the trainingrelated plasticity of long-distance and short-distance functional connectivity in the brain,and the difference of functional connectivity between young and old age groups.We also proposed a novel approach to analyze the dynamics of local functional connectivity,and investigated the relationship between dynamic local functional connectivity and cognitive training.Our study confirmed the existence of training-related plasticity in the level and organization of functional connectivity in older adults,which indicated the underlying neural mechanism of cognitive training.In addition,the approaches proposed in this research may introduce new methods and perspectives in fMRI analysis.